Over the years, a number of different types of fertilizer compositions have been developed and employed in agriculture. However, there is continued interest in the development of new fertilizer compositions which do not rely on synthetic chemicals. Specifically, there is increasing public concern over the potential link between pesticide use and human disease and/or poisoning conditions. As such, organic fertilizer compositions, which are typically derived from natural sources and therefore reduce the risk of introducing pathogens into the food supply, are in significantly high demand.
The desirable chemical nutrients of these organic fertilizer compositions include, but are not limited to, bioavailable phosphorous, potassium and nitrogen in concentrations beneficial to the agricultural vegetation to which the organic fertilizer composition is to be applied. Desirable characteristics of organic fertilizer compositions include, but are not limited to: the ability to directly inject the organic fertilizer compositions into irrigation streams; time-released nitrogen components which become bioavailable to agricultural vegetation by beneficial microbial digestion in the soil in which the agricultural vegetation is planted; and the elimination of crop burning and undesirable runoff situations.
Over the years various efforts have been expended to utilize waste products generated by fermentation and refined sugar processing as organic fertilizer compositions. These efforts have included deriving organic fertilizer compositions from malt extracts and/or spent grain liquor; treating molasses to recover in solid form potash and nitrogen for use as an organic fertilizer composition; deriving organic fertilizer compositions from commercially available molasses; deriving thixotrophic fertilizer compositions from organic materials including molasses; and deriving organic fertilizer compositions from yeast/black strap molasses. However, many of these organic fertilizer compositions require significant chemical processing and/or the addition of synthetically derived chemicals.
Therefore, an environmentally benign and non-pathogenic fertilizer derived from a natural organic source which does not require significant processing would be highly desirable in the relevant art. Unless otherwise indicated herein, the approaches described in this section are not prior art to the claims in this application and are not admitted to be prior art by inclusion in this section.